The Lark Ascending with Skipton Camerata

A bio-diversity of nature-themed music fills the air in this environmentally-aware orchestral concert. As we consider how – post-Covid, post-lockdown – our lives are to return to a ‘new normal’, the orchestra focuses on music that reflects on the natural world and our relationship with it.

Mendelssohn: Overture: The Hebrides (Fingal’s Cave)
Tim Brooks: Warriors of the Rainbow (first public performance)
Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
Beethoven: Symphony No 6 ‘Pastoral’

Sophie Rosa violin
Children’s Choir from Skipton Primary Schools
Skipton Building Society Camerata
Ben Crick conductor

Violinist Sophie Rosa is the soloist in one of the best-loved pieces of music of all time. Vaughan Williams ‘The Lark Ascending’ was inspired by a poem by George Meredith, which tells the tale of a skylark singing an impossibly beautiful, almost heavenly, song.

Beethoven always preferred the countryside to life in the city. His monumental ‘Pastoral Symphony’ is a celebration of nature depicting birdsong, stormy weather and the merry-making of country folk. And it was the Hebridean island of Staffa that inspired Mendelssohn’s windswept ‘Fingal’s Cave Overture’.

‘Warriors of the Rainbow’ is a new piece by composer and educationalist Tim Brooks. Now that the full impact of industrialisation on the natural world is increasingly understood, we asked Tim to address the climate crisis in a new commission as part of an educational project involving local primary schools funded by the Tarn Moor Estate. For this public performance the orchestra is joined by the young voices of some of Skipton’s primary school pupils.